


She Had Only Meant to Warn Him

by LilyFire



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Cheating, F/M, Forgiveness, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-14 12:20:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13589937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilyFire/pseuds/LilyFire
Summary: Clarke hears something suspicious in the woods, and warns Bellamy about it. He doesn't react well, and it may just shatter their friendship...





	She Had Only Meant to Warn Him

She had only meant to warn him, out of love. He has a right to know, and she thought he would trust her. After all they had been through together, the torrents of blood, the thousands of kisses exchanged between their eyes.

It wasn’t enough. And in the end, that is what hurts her the most.

\--

She is taking her morning walk. Clarke like to see the sunlight streaming over the misty ridges. Poets over centuries had written love letters to its dazzling brilliance, but she much prefers daybreak. It is softer but no less rapturous. As the birds stir and the mist fades into the damp ground, the warming light whispers of potential.

She is lost in thought about their next project. So many projects, so many people, yet so few resources. Clarke is adamant they build new houses, but Bellamy wants to route the manpower and energy towards farming. He argues hunting isn’t sustainable, and she counters that the bitter winters are on the morrow. It doesn’t matter what they eat if they freeze to death.

Sounds, a bit like a cry, ring from an alcove up ahead. Instinctively she crouches, gun drawn at her hip. Ferns fold as she creeps closer.  The cry takes an air of desperation, heady breathing mixes with heavy yearning. Then another, this one deeper, male. Red fans across Clarke’s face as she recognizes the pants and moans. Quietly she tucks her gun away, and with an embarrassed grin steps lightly towards another path.

“Ah! Keep – ah! Doing that!!”

The voice is Echo’s. Now Clarke begins to quake in her boots, could it be? No. Bellamy wouldn’t, not out here, would he? She chides herself for her conflicting turmoil of care and curiousity. It shouldn’t matter what – or whom – her people do, as long as they don’t cause trouble.

Clarke scrambles farther from the couple, whose lovemaking has reached peak. The birds scatter in alarm at their screams.

“Did you like that?”

That is not Bellamy’s voice.

Against her better judgement, Clarke strains her ears.

“Yeah,” through the heavy breathing she can just discern Echo’s voice.

“Do it again.”

That husky chuckle is not Bellamy’s.

\--

“Bellamy, I uh”

“What?” irritation ripples through his words. She can see the tension in his bunched shoulders, and longs to ease them like she did all those nights ago. The nights before he quit coming to her door for comfort, and instead stole away like a thief in the night to Echo’s warm bed.

“Um,” she clears her throat. Since when is Wanheda at a loss for words? “I need to talk to you, privately.”

He huffs and runs soot-covered hands through his shaggy curls.

“Now?” his brown eyes are bloodshot, and she can’t help the jealousy that seethes in her heart at the thought of his sleepless nights.

“Whenever you can.” Her smile is fake, but he isn’t looking.

Clarke is forgetful all day, focused only on what she should say. She thinks about confiding in Raven, her mother, but the fewer that know the better.

When dusk finally rolls around the lanterns of her people light up the sky like earth born stars. Exhausted, they take to bed or snatch a few hours of leisure. It is a hard life, and they need, no, deserve more.

The impatience is skidding through her veins like Jasper’s old moonshine. It thumps and boils and courses across her body until she is nearly shaking from the pent up energy.

“May we talk now?” she keeps her voice, light, soft. A spooked horse is dangerous, a spooked man just as desperate.

He nods and holds his door open as she enters. Blankets are draped half on the bed, books stacked on the rickety stool of a nightstand. It doesn’t look like he sleeps here most nights, merely uses it for storage.

Clarke look into his eyes, and her hours of written and rewritten speeches are lost.

“Well?” he takes a swig of water

_Just do it_. She closes her eyes, and her words come out in a single breath “Echo is seeing someone.”

The piercing shatter of glass on wood startles her back into reality.

“What?”

Blood is dripping through his fingers. She moves to help him, but she can’t save him from this.

“Echo is, with someone. I saw, or rather heard, her this morning.”

“No.”

His eyes are blazing, like churning lava.

“Bellamy, I – ”

“No! She wouldn’t do that! You’re mistaken!”

The thundering of his voice draws the woman in question to his door.

“What’s going on here?”

Bellamy rounds on her “Clarke thinks you’re sleeping with someone else!”

A flicker of fear passes across the Azgeda warrior’s face, but Bellamy’s rage blinds him.

“Of course not my love.”

It is smooth, calming. Like water before the storm.

“See?” fury is spitting his words at Clarke.

“Bellamy, listen”

“No. you listen.”

He moves so fast she nearly trips over the pile of clothes in her haste to get away.

“Don’t lie to me Clarke.”

His hands are on her upper arms, in a bruising grip.

“Bellamy, you’re hurting me.” Fear begins to seep in.

“Answer me!”

_This isn’t him this isn’t him this isn’t him_ she begs herself to believe this, through the thickening tears that blur his face into a monster.

“I’m not lying to you. I know what I heard.”

Echo, from her position at the door “She is lying Bellamy.” The temptress slithers closer “she’s only jealous.”

“What? No! Bellamy – ”

“You’re the lying whore Clarke, and now you’re trying to stir up trouble for me?”

From over his shoulder she can see Echo. Her eyes glittering like fresh blood on the sword, mouth a smirk of triumph.

His grip tightens and a cry of pain escapes. For a moment he regains himself, lips parted in surprise. Clarke dashes past him and launches herself at Echo.

The feeling is euphoric, the swing of each fist, the cracking of bone as it yields to vulnerable flesh, the rush of blood and the screams shrieking through the air. The copper scent of blood is a drug, and she inhales it in sharp breaths, the smell intoxicating and melting her conscience into a puddle of pleasure. The cries for mercy fade into the background, blend into the wild thump of her heart and the electric pulse of her veins. She doesn’t blink, doesn’t focus on the sight in front of her, the feeling, the feeling is what drives her. The pain and the lost hope and the despair rush in a torrent, drenching the cold floor beneath of her in a satisfying crimson.

It isn’t until one scream is louder than the others that she snaps back into the present. Suddenly the euphoria is ripped away, and she becomes aware that she is straddling Echo, a mess of blood coating her shredded hands while the girl weeps uncontrollably beneath her. Rough hands grab her shoulders and throw her off. She slams into a wall.  The impat ricochets through her shoulder. Clutching at it with one hand she struggles to her knees, blinking back to the present, gasping for breath.

A sharp wrench yanks in her chest as she watches him through blurry eyes, his back bent over Echo, clutching at her body, sobbing. She’s only seen him cry twice before, and once she was in his arms like that. Slowly, she stumbles to her feet, the room shifting beneath her, her legs heavy, and she drags herself towards the scene.

His eyes blaze red at her, and she jerks back at the fury and hatred swirling there.

“You bitch.” He spits out, and in two strides he’s at her, one strong hand around her throat.

Now she understands fear. She can feel it as he squeezes those slender hands about her neck. She claws at him, struggling to say his name. but his eyes full of vengeance rip away from her, and he tosses her back onto the ground.

His back to her, his gaze and arms reaching for the one he loves, not her.

“Get out.”

And she does.

\---

The bruises remain on her neck, a trace of her destruction, a trace of him. Each morning she stares at the blue and black spots, the mirror reflecting to her a disheveled girl with dark eyes and rumpled hair.

When she finally collects herself to head back, she isn’t prepared for the storm.

People part for her like the red sea. This isn’t new, except for the whispers. They haunt her like ghosts, follow her down hallways and writhe around her until they nearly choke her.

“What does this mean?”

“What a jealous bitch.”

“I always knew she hated Echo.”

Her mother is a different story. Tender hands, voice full of concern.

“He did this to you?”

“Mom, don’t”

“If your father was still here, if your father” Abby dissolves into tears

\--

Hours later Bellamy is striding through camp with a black eye and swollen jaw, but he avoids the clinic. Kane is there, holding Abby and Clarke, his bloodied knuckles freshly bandaged.

\--

“They have to get over this.”

“Raven! He, did you _see_ what Bellamy did to her?”

“Did you see what Clarke did to Echo?” the mechanic fires back “I’m no fan of that traitorous bitch, but we need these two to work together!”

Monty sighs and leans his head on Harper’s shoulder. She wraps his hands around her pregnant belly. Raven winces at the scene.

“I’ll figure it out.” The father-to-be says

“Good. And make it snappy.”

\--

It isn’t long before Bellamy finds out. He takes a gun into the woods and doesn’t come back for hours. The ring of gunshots flinches over the hushed camp. When he comes back the man, actually several men, are noticeably absent. Echo has packed a satchel and ridden off back to Asgeda. Not even a letter, not even a note.

They still won’t look at each other. Not even when Monty drives them to a remote location on the fringes of Skaikru’s land, claiming he needs both their help.

He is numb. She can see it in his eyes, his stare slack like the dying. His hands, still for once, and a cold blue, since he forgot gloves. She almost tears one of her own off. Almost.

But she is mad. Livid. He got what he deserved, so why does her heart ache for him? They get out of the rover, he doesn’t hold the door open for her anymore. No matter, she checks for all her knives and stands, hands on hips at the top of the hill.

“What are we here for?”

It is bitterly cold, and she can taste the crisp scent of a storm. The sky is a dark gray, muddled with angry clouds.

Behind her Monty is shivering, clutching the stones Harper warmed for him. Bellamy is impassive, blank as the smooth river.

“You two are going to make it back home, together, on your own.”

Clarke’s eyes flash like the thunder that lights up the sky and Monty is suddenly wishing Raven had tasked anyone else to the job.

“Take me home.” She yanks on the Rover’s door but it is locked.

“There’s the princess, giving orders.” Feeling is trickling back into his limbs as he warms to his barbs, unleashing his pent up misery.

“Would you rather I lived by ‘whatever the hell we want!’ Echo certainly took that to heart when she fucked somebody else!”

His fists curl and Clarke thinks _I’m ready for it_.

Monty slides back into the Rover, unsure whether to stay or to go.

“What did you just say?”

“You heard me! Your problem is _believing_ me, _trusting_ me!”

The clouds stir and another rumble of thunder shakes the air.

“You think just because you’re some Ark princess we should all fall down and kiss your feet? That your word is law!”

“So we’re back to that are we? No Bellamy” she spits his name like its venom “You should trust me after all we’ve been through together. But I guess that doesn’t matter to you.”

He counters but the booming thunder steals his voice. Clarke’s screams rise above the thrashing noise

“But if we’re back to that, you think you deserve respect because you’ve fought tooth and nail down here? Well so have I!”

“You left us! You left me” he snarls “you couldn’t handle the truth! Couldn’t face the reality of your actions!”

“Like you’re any better!” her voice is growing hoarse, but her frustration at its failing only spurs her on “Hell you can’t even keep a woman satisfied in your bed, let alone lead a camp!”

That does the trick. He roars like a lion impaled by a spear and charges. She sidesteps. He does too, never intending to actually hit her, and they collide.

His body falls on top of her, crushing her against the slimy mud and piercing rocks. The wind is knocked from her lungs, and she scrabbles for the collar of his shirt.

Bellamy instantly braces himself above her, his anger momentarily lost to the fear that she is injured.

When she finally regains her breath she unleashes another flaming wound “How could you not believe me? _How could you choose her over me_?”

She slams both fists into his chest, pummeling. He winces with each blow but takes the beating, knowing he deserves every strike for the suffering he has caused.

Furious he doesn’t fight back she shoves him off and scrambles to her feet “How Bellamy? _How_?”

The rain pours down in torrents, as though the Heavens are crying ugly, heartbroken sobs. Her hair is clinging to her forehead, and her Heda makeup drips like black blood.

“How!” her scream is riddled with agony and she rushes him again.

Bellamy catches her by the wrists, water from his hair splashing into her face as she looks up at him with a shattered gaze.

“Because it couldn’t be true!” he is alarmed that the dam encasing his heart is fracturing. The sting of tears prickles his eyelids.

“That’s not good enough Bellamy!”

“Because I couldn’t lose her like I lost you!” his yell seems to silence the roaring storm.

“What?” it comes out a whisper

“I lost you Clarke.” His chest is heaving as he fights for control

“You didn’t lose me Bellamy.” She wants to reach up at stroke his face, kiss away his tears and hold him until their broken pieces fit together.

His hands are still around her wrists, and he pulls her close until their foreheads touch. Their breaths billow in the chilly air, suspended for a heartbeat between their shuddering bodies.

“I lost you to Lexa. To the Mountain Men. To Allie.” His words blur as he struggles for air “I lost you when I couldn’t be there for you. You left to patch yourself together, never thinking, never trusting, that I could help you.”

Clarke is crying. She wants to believe him, desperately so. Her heart is screaming at her to kiss him, but she holds back.

The cold rushes between the heat of their bodies as she pulls away, distant as the mountain.

“You hurt me.”

“I know.” His eyes are the broken land and fallen stones after an earthquake. The devastation of a collapsed city. The sorrow of a starless night.

“You hurt me Bellamy!” she is ashamed at the tears coursing down her face, so she angrily wipes them away. “You hurt me.” Saying it aloud is worse than the pain of his fist upon her face, hands around her throat. Saying it brings the realization that the good man she loved isn’t so good. He broke her heart and he broke her body. Giving him her spirit is only _fool me once, fool me twice_. She cries and clutches her head in her hands, begging the storm to swallow her whole. She feels ripped open like the jagged sky, draining horror instead of rain.

She repeats it over and over, pleading with herself. Convincing her tortured mind and bloodied heart that she should never forgive him.

But she can’t do it. Not when he falls to his knees in front of her, icy mud soaking through his worn jeans.

“Clarke” his hands, gentle now, reach for hers. He clasps them and brings their entwined fingers to his lips.

“Clarke, look at me.”

He is a haze through the blurry vision of her tears.

“I hurt you, I know.” His voice breaks like the lightening that cracks across the sky.

“I will never forgive myself for it. But Clarke, I can’t live without you.”

She blinks the tears and rain from her face and sees him clearly, for the first time in a long time.

“Clarke,” his voice, hands, eyes, all urgent “I promise you I can be the man you need, the man you deserve, by your side. My princess, my love” he stutters over the declaration, but its sincerity rings like the wedding bells of a church “come back to me.”

For one endless moment she hesitates. Wanheda, Commander of Death. Princess. Commander of Skaikru. Clarke Griffin. In all her identities she only feels complete with him.

Like a Queen to her beloved knight she raises him from the filth of the dirt.

“Bellamy” his name renewed upon her lips, dressed in something she had never dared to name, but always felt. “Bellamy” her lover’s name is warm, tasting like home.

She flings her arms about his neck and he picks her up, legs wrapping around his waist. They are entangled in that searing embrace before she draws back and kisses him with the ferocity of the storm.

 


End file.
